Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[oldtimer]

Kherson City is basically a ghost city now. Everything of resource has been stripped, and it's citizens sent to mainland Russia or occupied territory. I would compare it to Moscow/Borodino 1812.

With Russia's last significant logistical strain gone/Dnieper river as cover, it's offensive capabilities are strengthened.

Meanwhile back in Donetsk, in Pavlivka/Ugledar region:

Throughout world history the only war Russia has ever won on it's own without allies was the 1877 Russo-Turkish War.

When there's war the safest bet is against the russians, they are losers.

[oldtimer]

You have to watch this. It's an old Soviet joke come to life.

I think we have to start thinking about Winning the Peace.
The War is already won, now comes the hard part of what to do with the vanquished.

Watching that video, I think the russian people would like being ruled by pro-western Kyiv as long as they are one single democratic country.

There is no major language barrier, same religion, same history, they will accept Ukrainian rule provided they have civil rights, same as the unification of Italy or Germany but under a Western government.

Ukraine annexing Russia would instantly solve a lot of stability problems, it will get the UN seat leaving just China with a veto, puts NATO on the Chinese border, and wins the peace.

Afterall it's only fitting that Ukraine annexes the whole of Russia, since Putin wanted to annex Ukraine.

[oldtimer]

If Ukraine takes Melitopol, that means Russia has lost the war. Donetsk is a big city and is not worth the cost of contesting. One Putin loses his land bridge, and Crimea is subject to being contested, he will give up. That is my uneducated opinion. Another way to put it, is that if Russia cannot prevent Melitopol from falling, that means its military has been rendered largely toothless. We shall see.

Russia lost the war in the first hours of the war, when they rushed the tanks with no infantry or air support.

The Ukrainian army should march to Moscow and annex Russia, they will be no resistance since there is currently no functional or loyal russian society or army.

The people of Moscow will greet them as liberators just like the people of Kherson.

If they don't annex Russia now that it's defenceless, they simply invite a future war under less favourable conditions for Ukraine.

[oldtimer]

https://mobile.twitter.com/Tendar/status/1592221551973523456
🚨🚨🚨

Sievierodonetsk and Rubizhne but not Lysychansk? That seems strange...

They have been building defenses on the south side of the river all the way to their old border.

And bulding defenses in south Crimea too.

They are really not confident of holding anything, that's why I support a march to Moscow, you would never have a Russia this weak for a long time.

[oldtimer]

Russia's Q3 GDP came in at -4.0% versus the expected -4.7%.  Russia's 2022  GDP numbers by Quarter YoY are
Q1:   3.5%
Q2:  -4.1%
Q3:  -4.0%

It seems absolute output on a QoQ basis has stabilized so it is reasonable to expect Q4 YoY to be -4.0% to -5.0% since we do have to take into account the impact of mobilization.   That should add up to a total 2022 GDP change to be around -2.5% to -3.0%.  This is much lower than the -8% to -10% when the war started and the collective West all-out sanctions started.

Dude, Russia is in a Great War and their industrial production still keeps going down.

Any real government would have mobilized it's industry to aid it's war efforts.

Like in 1916 there is no functional russian government that can implement decisions, but few have realized that the Tsar has no authority left.

[oldtimer]

The world would be better place if the Russian state was wiped off the face of the Earth. Literally an army of rabid dogs.

- Adolf Hitler, 1941

Here read it, it's a long depressing read and still a true depiction of russia:

La Russie en 1839 (the english translation)
https://archive.org/details/russiatranslated1934cust/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater

The summary is basically that russia in 1839 is a land of tyrrany, cruelty, corruption and despair, whose expansionism is basically an effort by the population to escape their miserable country and acquire a better one.

And also that book analyses why it is what it is.

[oldtimer]

In Moscow, they are also gearing up for the 1 year anniversary of the war.

“23rd February. For Victory, For Our People, For Truth”

That picture encapsulates why russia is losing the war.
They spend more time and money on propaganda than in military production.

You can't win a great war with giant flat screen TV's.

[oldtimer]

https://www.the-sun.com/news/7439022/kyiv-security-chief-vows-ukraine-tanks-moscow/

"FIGHTING TALK Ukraine vows to end war with Russia by parking its tanks in Moscow’s Red Square"

Pretty ambitious talk.  I do admire his spunk in wanting to take the war to the enemy even if for now not realistic.

They can do it if they promise to the russian people civil rights by a pro-western Kiev government that annexes russia.

Remember the people of russia never fight for the Tsar, and I expect them to defect and greet them as liberators provided they behave as actual liberators rather than just another dictatorship.

[oldtimer]

In Moscow, they are also gearing up for the 1 year anniversary of the war.

“23rd February. For Victory, For Our People, For Truth”

That picture encapsulates why russia is losing the war.
They spend more time and money on propaganda than in military production.

You can't win a great war with giant flat screen TV's.

Actually, the Kremlin has allocated more on its budget for this year towards internal security, than on the military. Everything else is getting cutbacks.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/surge-russias-defence-security-spending-means-cuts-schools-hospitals-2023-2022-11-22/

This is especially telling:

Funding will be cut for state programmes on education, but increased by 513% from this year for "patriotic training" in schools to reflect Russia's view of current and historic events, according to Ranepa and the Gaidar Institute.

That is low, America spent 1/3rd of it's gdp on defence in WW2.
155$ billion is only half what the USSR spent annually in the 1980's.

[oldtimer]

That is low, America spent 1/3rd of it's gdp on defence in WW2.
155$ billion is only half what the USSR spent annually in the 1980's.

I'm making a correction: Russia's budget for the military (4.98 trillion Rubles) is still greater than the budget for internal security (4.42 trillion). But internal security received a far greater increase in funding, and everything else except for patriotic propaganda in schools is facing cutbacks, which reveals how the Kremlin is prioritizing its resources.

That's the greatest indictment against Putin's claim that he was forced to wage the special military operation to save the country. If he truly believed that, he would have had no problem persuading the people - from the billionaire oligarchs to the pensioner in Chelyabinsk - to make a great sacrifice for the Motherland, enabling him to mobilize the entire nation for the war effort, and to do so for at least a year before starting the war. The fact that he didn't bother to do so, and only started mobilizing the nation after a series of disasters on the battlefield, indicates that he views this war through the lens of maintaining his power in the Kremlin, not out of any duty to the Russian nation.

If you read a biography of Putin you will realize that he is basically an ex-spy turned very succesfull stockbroker.

He and his pals founded the St.Petersburg exchange in 1991 and apparently "robbed" billions in cocaine from the Colombian mafia in Operation Acapulco in 1992.

His circle is excellent with financial matters and ruthless, but know nothing about warfare.

You can see it in russian propaganda that they only spout useless economic statistics all the time. You can't win a shooting war by targeting GDP per capita.

[oldtimer]

https://mobile.twitter.com/Tendar/status/1629533339295129604
https://mobile.twitter.com/Tendar/status/1629534563109072896
https://mobile.twitter.com/Tendar/status/1629536875466637313
https://mobile.twitter.com/Tendar/status/1629539396562108419
The long hyped Russian offensive to nobodies shock seems to be a dud that changed nothing on the front lines

Russians from the start of the war, assault urban settlements and strong points without encircling them, usually moving as slow as possible on exposed roads while relying on artilery, failed WW1 tacticts.

While NATO trained armies are trained to move as fast as possible with air or missile cover through fields or deserts , encircling and bypassing urban settlements and points of high resistance and letting the upcoming infantry to take care of that, blitzkrieg.

I'm pretty sure the russians have not even watched a single western WW2 movie to even understand the basics of war, much less read a millitary manual.

[oldtimer]

The Russian government wants to make a model city out of Mariupol (Grozny 2.0) to show it's successes. It's been funneling money and mostly workers from Central Asia and other regions of Russia for government contracts.

Current population might be anywhere from low 100,000s (UA estimation from May 2022) to 200,000s.

- Fully rebuilt by 2025
- Plans to have around half a million inhabitants by the next decade (Soviet peak)
- Azovstal will be turned into an industrial park
- Restore the Mariupol International Airport (closed in 2014)

What's the point of rebuilding a city if they don't have an army to defend it ?

By 2025 it could easily be Ukrainian again because they wasted so many resources on rebuilding Mariupol instead of making guns to win the war.

[oldtimer]

There is still hopes for Ukrainians to hold Bakmut. If Bakmut can hold for a month, for the time for Western tanks to arrive in Ukraine in either late March or early April, that will give Ukrainians the advantage thanks to a counteroffensive to free the entire Bakmut region thanks to those tanks, including Leopard 2 and Abrams, and then to launch a Ukrainian offensive to free the all the occupied territory by undermining Russians' trench warfare ability

You can't have any offensives in Ukraine if the temperature is between 35-75F, the ground will be too muddy and any mechanized force will be stuck on narrow roads.

Anyway tanks have been mostly useless in war since the Toyota War, and fighter jets since Iraq.

No modern army has won a proper war since 1991, and before that WW2, all victorious armies have been highly trained and equiped motorised militias.

It's what lead to massive Ukrainian victories over the Russian army in 2022.

They need lots and lots of pickup trucks and hand-held missiles, not tanks and jets that are easy targets.

Look at how easy precision Rocket Artilley (HIMARS) has replaced the Airforce, and Javelins the tanks.

[oldtimer]

https://mobile.twitter.com/KyivPost/status/1638824510567899136
More and more positive assessments of the situation in Bakmut. This might actually be the Stalingrad of this war. If Ukraine can somehow actually win this battle, Putin might actually start purging his high command

I doubt he will purge his incompetent pals Shoigu and Gerasimov.

Putin and his government did nothing after their historic defeats in March of 2022, did nothing after they lost their fleet , did nothing after they lost their airforce, only did a partial mobilization after another historic defeat in Septermber of 2022, did nothing after their defeat in Khershon, did nothing after they started bombing Russia.

So even if the Ukrainian army captures the Kremlin it's likely that Putin will still do nothing.

Never in recorded history has a leader been seen to be so apathetic and lazy.

[oldtimer]

A few hundred pages back Torie said that he could measure how well the war was going for each side by seeing who was posting the most in this thread. By that measure the past week must have been especially dire for the Russians.

Sounds like cope. Ukraine hasn't won any territory since mobilization.

They drove Russia from all of Kharkiv oblast and
In the same timeframe that your glorious Russian masturbatory aide has failed to take a minor city 2.5km from the front.

Someone’s coping alright

Kharkiv was before mobilization. And during Kherson the mobiks were still in training fields.

It's a 100% fact that Ukrainians have never had a successful offensive against Russian forces with the same or more ratio of troops (Kharkiv/North/Kherson) has either been unmanned or withdrawned. Mobilization has addressed these issues, and that's precisely why Ukrainians will never push Russia out of the country.

But the russians never had and never will have the same ratio of troops, they are always outnumbered, outled, and outgunned since the start.

Take it from me, Russia lost this war the moment they invaded in muddy conditions only with armoured columns with no infantry and no air support, since the morning of Day 1. They had a maximum of 2 days to capture Kiev before the Ukranian infantry moved in to blast their tanks on the busy roads with their anti-tank missiles.  

They have idiots as leaders, they don't mass mobilize, they don't mass produce, they just sit there until it's too late for them to win.

If they ever do a movie about it would inevitably have a scene like this one about russian soldiers moaning about their incompetent government:

[oldtimer]

I know you’re a little butthurt right now Bakmut Bob because Ukraine has embarrassed you and your pro-Russia fantasies again but you got to learn to take an L every now and then

The problem for them is they never had a Win so they don't know what the difference is from losing.

[oldtimer]

Muradov (Responsible for Vuhledar assaults) has been replaced by Kuzmenko (The bald guy on the picture below)

https://twitter.com/TruthPuke/status/1640502790593343489
https://twitter.com/ILRUSSO12/status/1640594895340548097

Kinda funny how the army you keep claiming is winning keeps firing it’s generals huh?

Imagine how bad it would have been for them if they didn't replace incompetent generals.

Although sometimes the fish rots from the head.

In the American Civil War both presidents and their officer corps were incompetent on military matters, because they couldn't understand modern weaponry or how to use it properly, they were still using manuals from Napoleon's time.

For example, both Lincoln and Davis insisted on trying to capture each other's capital, even though it was impossible because of the relative narrow passage between the mountains and the sea, making maneuvers difficult and creating a high density of enemy soldiers.

But General Bragg was in a class of his own in stupidity.

[oldtimer]

For the first time since The Deluge, there is an argument to be made that Poland is becoming a major military power in Europe and exceeds Germany in total military potential.  They are no longer the prey of Teuton but a hunter themselves.

What did you expect ?

German industrial investment in Poland has been very large over 30 years now, and they got Silesia which was Prussia's industrial heartland.

They hate the russians and the germans, but are currently at war with the russians over what both sides consider to be their historical territory.

So of course Poland will always be in conflict with Russia over control of Ukraine, and Poland has dragged NATO and the EU in it and always will, it was all inevitable since 1999.

[oldtimer]

UN data on Ukrainian demographics for 2021 and 2023

Looks like the 20-35 age group have seen a steep decline.  For the males, it is battle deaths and immigration (although the immigration part must be limited due to Ukraine laws against able-bodied men from leaving) and for females, it must be all immigration.

What was that one poster here wrote: "jairchild posts some meaningless statistic" ?

How do they get that number if no one is counting ?

And if those numbers where true the Ukrainian army would have already collapsed from lack of manpower, instead of being on the verge of victory.

[oldtimer]

UN data on Ukrainian demographics for 2021 and 2023

Looks like the 20-35 age group have seen a steep decline.  For the males, it is battle deaths and immigration (although the immigration part must be limited due to Ukraine laws against able-bodied men from leaving) and for females, it must be all immigration.

What was that one poster here wrote: "jairchild posts some meaningless statistic" ?

How do they get that number if no one is counting ?

And if those numbers where true the Ukrainian army would have already collapsed from lack of manpower, instead of being on the verge of victory.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine

Wikipedia has a similar chart for 2023 population pyramid

The statistics about manpower are only of the few that really matter in a war.
However the numbers don't agree with the battlefield, so someone is making them up.

If it was correct then why is Russia losing instead ?

Or as you would put it "russia is winning, just in the other direction" ?

[oldtimer]

Anti-tank gun introduced in 1961:

https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1641697283510091776?s=20

Frankly I wouldn't be surprised with BT-7 from the 1930's making a comeback.

Since tanks last so little in action before getting blown up, everyone needs the fastest cheapest thing available that can be mass produced, and doesn't trigger anti-tank mines from it's weight.

[oldtimer]

UN data on Ukrainian demographics for 2021 and 2023

Looks like the 20-35 age group have seen a steep decline.  For the males, it is battle deaths and immigration (although the immigration part must be limited due to Ukraine laws against able-bodied men from leaving) and for females, it must be all immigration.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FsfKVRSXoAAxkP5?format=jpg&name=small

What was that one poster here wrote: "jairchild posts some meaningless statistic" ?

How do they get that number if no one is counting ?

And if those numbers where true the Ukrainian army would have already collapsed from lack of manpower, instead of being on the verge of victory.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine

Wikipedia has a similar chart for 2023 population pyramid

The statistics about manpower are only of the few that really matter in a war.
However the numbers don't agree with the battlefield, so someone is making them up.

If it was correct then why is Russia losing instead ?

Simple answer, they're not. Ukraine has had waves of mobilization, and yet they're still barely holding the line (witch cracks here and there) after Russia started with one wave of mobilization.

I speak frequent bullcr@p (pardon my expression), so allow me to translate your official P.R. statement:

It's complex, but they are. Russia had a mobilization, and yet Russia is still barely holding the line (which cracks here and there) after Ukraine started to mobilize.

[oldtimer]

The upcoming Ukrainian offensive will see it's best troops and newly arrived NATO armaments go forward.

At this point I see two options left for Ukraine, both long shots:

1. Svatove
2. Melitopol

https://twitter.com/front_ukrainian/status/1643669773207707649

40k troops is way small, unless the russians have a defence force of similar size, which is possible given how small the russian army currently is.

I would expect at least 100k to be on the safe side.

[oldtimer]

It's real...

https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1646622737580933121

Non zero chance we get to see Leopard 1 and T-55 duke it out in a few months. The irony is that this is 2023 not 1973...

Both of them from a similar era and on paper should have similar performance, that is both of them should last no more than an hour in battle before being blown up.

Leopard 2 tanks are too heavy to be used in that part of the world, they would sink in the soft ground.

[oldtimer]

The Global North vs Global South divide evidenced by Ukraine and Western Double Standards after decades of not living up to the moral speech they defend they “represent” is the big story of this century. Multipolar World: We have one side pushing for it and the other trying to repress it in order to protect their unbalanced share of power. Ukraine just happened to be the catalyst for all this because it’s where it became evident that the compassion given to a white european country in danger is extremely different than what has always been given to non-white countries.

But, isn't Russia itself a white European country, which is using its non-white subjects, and its poor subjects, to wage war against another white European country? What makes one of them "global south" and the other "global north"?!

The reason why we're discussing this here is that Putin sees the mere existence of Ukraine as a threat to his own rule in the Kremlin, and so he takes the sons of ethnic minorities, and poor Russians, to die for himself.

The British Empire, for all its faults, had a social expectation for the sons of the upper class to enlist in the military. That at least provided some restraint against purely "useless" wars, even when the empire itself was motivated by enriching the upper class.

Meanwhile, the sons of the Russian elite are still posting on Instagram about their exploits in London, Switzerland, and Miami. Their words are just that - words.

The same is true about the sons of the elites of Iran, China, Cuba, Venezuela, etc: they're all living the high life in countries that are denounced in their own official propaganda.

And since the “rules-based world order” doesn’t exist, or exists to be more in favor of people who look a certain way over others, we’re seeing people behave accordingly because it means we need to construct a completely new and more balanced world order. And the 1st path to this is necessarily weakening the dollar. The future is in the South and South-South collaboration..

It's always a good idea to look for other means of transactions. In reality, the rise of blockchains means it might be possible that, in the near future, there will be no reason why an Indian importer must make payments to an Argentinian exporter in a currency that neither of them truly need, and that it would be technically impossible for any third party to unilaterally obstruct them.

Having said that...

A means of storage of wealth is still necessary. It was gold and silver in the past, before fiat currency became the predominant means in the last century. The US Dollar emerged as global hegemon, in very large part because its capital markets are the most liquid. Is it unfair? Yes, because there are many countries with more stable political and institutional systems and which also have better opportunities for investment, which are neglected as a result of this hegemony.

But China is simply not an alternative, at all. The Renminbi is not freely convertible, which means it doesn't even meet the definition of a storage of wealth. Why isn't it convertible?

Look at these:

https://twitter.com/carlquintanilla/status/1645878241217900546
https://twitter.com/abcampbell/status/1645719205763772416
According to official statistics, China's M2 money supply is equivalent to the money supply of the US, the Eurozone, and the UK combined, despite still having a much smaller economy than the US, and is still generating new money supply at a record pace while the money supply of the western economies is contracting. What does this mean?

It means that the Renminbi is massively overvalued, and that its true value without capital controls would be about 15-20 to the US Dollar instead of the 6.5-7.0 that it is now. Its current per capita GDP is roughly equivalent to that of Argentina or Costa Rica. At the hypothetical "true" exchange rate, it would be around the level of Guatemala or El Salvador. No one thinks these countries are up-and-coming superpowers.

In other words, for China to offer a credible reserve currency, it would have to make the Renminbi to become fully convertible, but doing so would cause it to collapse and trigger widespread domestic social unrest. That's why in recent years, even routine cross-border transactions have become a bureaucratic pain in the ass: it's hardly a sign of confidence in the future.

Is the current US Dollar hegemony unfair, because it sucks up investment that could otherwise go to other countries? Yes. But, I don't see a good future for China under the current situation, and the actions of its leadership indicate they don't, either.

It simply means what we all can see.

China is by far no1 in Industry, Trade, and Construction in the world, so it's logical for them
 to also have the largest money supply because of all the transactions.

By all appearances the Chinese economy probably overtook America around the late 2000's, even if no one wants to admit it.

You only have to look at the number and condition of their cities compared to America's.